Deadly Virtues
by EllieF
Summary: If anyone would presume to argue with angels," Mello said, "it's me, right?"


**Notes:** This was written for dn_contest's second remix week, and is a remix of speaky_bean's brilliant "Deadly Sins & Broken Commandments," the URL of which would get borked, but which can be found with the entries for week #44 at the comm.

**Deadly Virtues**

Matt really ought to have known that the one way to guarantee Mello would be determined to read something was to scribble away at it furtively. Since when did Matt write anything but cheat codes on his hand in Sharpie, which left smudges curled like illegible tattoos around Mello's arm and black blotches inked on his hip? It was easy enough to get up while Matt snored and find the pages covered with his chicken scratch. Folded up in the Devil May Cry case, how typical. It was obviously a work in progress, since he hadn't gotten to Lust or Wrath yet. Mello took the pages into the bathroom and read them in the light of the lone bare bulb, sitting on the cracked porcelain of the toilet lid, and he huffed and frowned and rolled his eyes, and realized by the time he got to the mention of L ("bullshit," he muttered, there) that he was already composing a rebuttal.

***

Dear, all right, "angels,"

What Matt doesn't understand is that it's not the sins that condemn me. If I didn't have faith, which I _think_ you'll find is a virtue, I could sin my ass off, right? It's not like he thinks _he's_ going to hell for sitting around on his ass playing games all day, does he? Textbook sloth right there. Hypocrisy may not have made the cut for deadly sins, but it's sure as hell in the top ten ways to annoy your friends.

It would be pointless for me to deny I've committed six of the deadly sins, and thanks for the _restraint_ in not running down the commandments too. I'm not convinced angels are supposed to be omniscient and shit, but fine, whatever, you have evidence, even if you might want to double-check that penis-size thing. Were you looking at Matt's through a fisheye lens or something?

Anyway, you've conveniently ignored all the evidence that I _also_ possess all seven of the cardinal and theological virtues. When I'm judged in the end, it would be only fair to put those on the other side of the scales.

**Courage:**

You're angels, you saw how it was. But in case _someone_ wasn't paying attention, let me paint you a picture.

Maybe the only person you ever respected just got killed by someone who _cheated_. And maybe some little wanker who can't even walk properly just fucking _sits_ there when you get the news, and worse, insults his memory. I think not speaking ill of the dead is one of _your_ rules. Would you stick around and work with the wanker? I don't think so.

So you leave with nothing but the clothes on your back, and you can't even say goodbye to your best friend, because you _know_ he'll beg to come with you, and you're not sure you can say no. But where you're going is no place for a skinny geek who knows more about guns made of pixels than ones made of steel, and anyway you already know you're going to have to turn into a person you're not sure you want him to see.

Maybe you're just a kid in New York, and any bastard with more muscle than brains thinks he can take you down. So maybe you talk really big, and maybe you have to fuck a couple of guys up, but it hits 3 AM and you realize you're afraid to sleep, because who knows what they might do to you if they catch you by surprise and you haven't intimidated them enough?

And maybe when it starts to get light outside, which you know because you can see the fucking sky through the holes in the roof, you know you're not going to sleep at all, and maybe for just a second the only thing you want in _life_ is that safe bed you left behind on the other side of the ocean, the one in a room with actual walls and an actual ceiling and a door that _locks_. But you know you can't go back, so you get a knife and a gun and you learn to use them to buy yourself enough time so those bastards with more muscle than brains will _listen_ to you and not beat the snot out of you, or worse. It's hard, and you feel like you go a year without ever having one second to _breathe_ or _relax_, but you have to do it. You have to do it even if every once in a while you wish you didn't, and then you curse your weakness and man the fuck up and get on with it.

You can go look up the definition of courage once you get your heavenly bookstore, but I can tell you right now: that fits it.

**Faith: **

Let's talk about faith. Let's talk about me still believing God exists at all when the world's given itself over to worshipping a false idol. When I lost my parents so long ago I can't even remember what they looked like. When every single fucking time I think things are going my way, it all gets snatched away and I have to start from scratch again. I don't know if _you're_ counting, but it's been three times.

I don't just still believe God's up there with you lot. I still believe He loves us and listens to us. I believe He tests us so we can show Him what we're made of, so we don't just believe when it's _easy_, but when it feels next to fucking impossible. I believe He wants the good guys to win, and I believe even if it means knowing I'll end up in Hell for what I've done. Hanging onto my faith should probably count double, given everything I've been through in only twenty years.

**Hope: **

Hope goes hand in hand with faith, doesn't it? Shit, if I didn't have more than my fair share of it, I would've killed myself by now and ended up even _more_ in your bad books. If I didn't have the hope that the world could recover from Kira, there wouldn't be any point in going on.

Here's what I hope, angels: I hope I bring this war to an end and Kira gets what he deserves. Write however many letters you want about how bad I am, there's no way I'm worse than he is. And when you're weighing everything out on those metaphorical scales? You might want to remember that most of the sins I've committed have been for the purpose of stopping _him_.

I hope I'll get a chance to show you, and everyone else hanging out up there on your cloud or whatever, that I'm not really like that. That I've been what I had to be to live in the world as it is. And I'm not _proud_ of that. Not deadly-sin-level proud, at least.

Here's what else I hope: that Matt gets to enjoy that world after Kira. That he lives to be a hundred and fucking ten even though he smokes like a chimney and eats nothing but junk food. That someday he can go out and just fucking _walk down the street_ without worrying about who might see him or follow him. That he'll live in a world where people aren't too damn scared to use their real names.

Most of all I hope—yes, even if he's a snarky bastard who thinks I don't give a shit—I hope he'll forgive me if I'm not there to see that world with him.

**Prudence:**

_Fine_, I'll give you this one. I'm not precisely on chummy terms with prudence, though I _could_ point out that having discriminating tastes, like with that expensive chocolate you were so eager to complain about, qualifies as showing fine judgment.

It's not like your little informant is a paragon of prudence either. And it's not like his record with the deadly sins is much better than mine. Hell, given that he's slothed it up enough for the both of us, it might be worse. You can't tell me he's not envious that I blew myself the fuck up and came out looking _even hotter_. And two packs of cigarettes a day, or however many he really smokes, is neither prudent _nor_ ungluttonous. He doesn't even pretend he isn't prideful about his high scores or how fast he can beat games. Read between the lines of that letter. There's more than enough to send him to Hell right along with me. I'll save him a seat on the express bus down.

**Temperance:**

I can already hear you saying I'm one of the most intemperate people ever. (You don't have to be an angel to predict their reactions.) But let me remind you of just a couple of the times I _did_ exercise that thing called restraint.

Like the two times I could have killed Near and didn't. That's right, two. Do you think I don't know his name? (For that matter, do you think he doesn't know mine? And if you think that if he'd gotten his hands on one of those notebooks, he wouldn't have thought even longer and more seriously about taking me out than I did about taking _him_ out, you need to go back to Observing Human Behavior 101. He's a colder bastard than I'll ever be. In fact, he's a prime example of temperance taken too far. Maybe you'll consider that for a future revision of these virtues.)

I'm not going to pretend I didn't want to shoot him at the headquarters. I pulled the gun and everything, we all know this. Hal was right, though: both of us dying there would've accomplished exactly nothing. I think I deserve some sort of temperance _medal_ for backing down after I was _more than provoked_.

And let's take a closer look at another thing that might _appear_ intemperate on the surface: wiping out most of the SPK. Try playing a few bars of this tune on your harps: those guys were sitting ducks already. If I could get their info, Kira could, and God and you only know what _he_ would've done with it. So, sure, I was covering my ass, but you have to give me credit for covering Near's too.

***

He tucked the pages behind the cleaning supplies that had been in the cabinet under the bathroom sink for as long as he and Matt had been staying here, and had obviously gone untouched even longer: there was a spider web in the handle of the Liquid Plumber bottle. Matt would never find the letter there.

He had the nerve to act like he hadn't written five pages ranting about Mello's sins, and Mello absolutely couldn't admit he'd snuck Matt's letter out and read it. Dinner was a silent and sullen affair. Mello _hated_ feeling like they were fighting when he couldn't even yell to break the tension. He could tell Matt knew something was up, and Matt seemed about to say something a couple of times, but after they ate, he picked up an ashtray and his DS and went into the bedroom.

_Fine_, Mello told himself. _Let him stew._ There were more important things to worry about than whether Matt was sulking. He opened up his maps of the Tokyo streets around NHN and Hal's notes about Takada's daily routine, and double-checked everything one more time. After a while, he realized he hadn't heard anything from their room in some time, not even the muffled curses or crows of triumph that were the constant and inescapable soundtrack to Matt's games.

He went to the bedroom door and peeked in. Matt was asleep, sprawled across the whole bed fully clothed, boots and goggles and all. _Talk about sloth_, Mello thought, but he smiled for a second at how fucking typically _Matt_ it was.

Then he remembered to check if Matt had written about the last two sins, and he didn't smile again for the rest of the night.

***

"'Every fucking command,' 'endless rage,' _fuck you_, Matt."

The letter was refolded and stuffed back into its hiding place, and Mello was pacing in the dark living room, arguing with it under his breath in, yes, rage. Impotent, hissed rage he couldn't even vent on the asshole who deserved it, which made Mello even angrier and more determined to freeze Matt out. "We'll see who's lustful. I give you three days of not getting any before you're begging me to fuck you."

He dropped onto the couch, and he couldn't even fling himself down properly without making too much noise. _Seriously, fuck you, Matt. Are you too dumb to figure out that I called you because you were all I had left? Because I needed someone I'd trust with my life, and you're fucking __it__ in that category?_

"Because I needed _you_," he said out loud, but very quietly. The rage had drained away. He had two more virtues to cover, and they were the most important ones.

**Justice:**

Do I even have to elaborate here? What have I been fighting for, for the last six years, if not justice? What's been the point of my whole fucking life since I was a kid?

Revenge, you'll probably say, isn't justice. But isn't it?

Kira took L away from us. Not just from _me_, from a world that _needs_ him. He took L away and _stole his name_ and set himself up as a parody of justice, a parody of _God_. I know he'll pay in the afterlife, but he damn well deserves to pay here too. The world deserves to know it's rid of him. If I have to break every commandment and commit every sin to guarantee he faces earthly justice for his crimes, I will. My soul may be tarnished, but his is black.

**Love:**

This is the big one, the greatest out of faith, hope, and love. I know you can translate it as "charity," but it's the same thing. Giving without expecting anything in return. I guess I'm not very good at that. I don't remember my parents, so I only know one person who's ever done that for me.

Love may be the most important virtue, but it's also the most difficult to practice. If the things I've seen have made it hard for me to still believe in God, trust me, they've made it even harder for me to believe in love.

Or they would have, if there weren't someone to remind me it exists. _You_ know who that is, even if _he_ doesn't.

Someone who's never been afraid of me, who'll bust my ass, even, when I need it busted. Who is—you got this much right—one of the sexiest creatures on earth. Who saw me at my fucking worst, and stuck around anyway. Who's made me break probably every damn unspoken rule I have for dealing with people. Maybe he couldn't tell, but I was so fucking nervous the first time I kissed him, it was like I'd forgotten how to kiss at all.

And it shouldn't matter that I can't say the words. Call it pride, call me broken, call it whatever the fuck you like. He damn well ought to know it anyway.

So there you have it, a virtue to counterbalance every sin, for whatever the hell it's worth to you. You dealt my hand from a deck stacked against me, and I think I've done pretty well in spite of that.

***

"I think it's a sin to interfere with the delivery of letters from Heaven."

Matt looked up, eyes wide behind the goggles. "You, uh. Saw that?"

"You're not half as sneaky as you think," Mello said, sitting down on the arm of the ratty sofa. "What did you do with it?"

"Tore it up." He had the good grace to look embarrassed about it.

"Is that what I should do with mine?"

"_Yours_? You—"

"Yeah. If anyone would presume to argue with angels, it's me, right?"

"Look, man, you didn't have to. I didn't mean it."

"You meant _some_ of it." Mello wasn't mad, not anymore, but he was still irritated enough to want to have his say. Maybe, knowing what he'd written, while Matt didn't yet, he should've taken the out so conveniently offered. But when had he ever believed in the easy way? He pulled the folded pages from his jacket pocket and silently handed them over. Then he shoved himself up off the couch and went to the bedroom so he at least wouldn't have to watch while Matt read. Impatience may not have been a sin, but he wasn't so sure right now that Matt wouldn't try to argue that it was.

By the time Matt came in, the letter in his hand, Mello was sitting on the bed, toying absently with his rosary and coming up with a hundred things he should have written, or should have written _better_.

Matt dropped the pages onto the nightstand and sat down next to him. "I've never said it either."

"You don't have to. I know."

Matt leaned over and put his head on Mello's shoulder, and Mello's arms went around him automatically. "Think there's a smoking section on that express bus?"

"I'd be shocked if there weren't."

"Hm. Then it won't be so bad."

Mello closed his eyes and rested his cheek against Matt's hair. "No. Not so bad at all."


End file.
